Do Women Work Harder Than Men in Interval Workouts?

Attention men: The next time you're doing a track workout and someone says "you run like a girl," take it as a compliment rather the intended insult.

After all, women run at a higher percentage of their maximum than men during interval sessions, even when both genders report working at the same effort level, according to research that will be published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research.

For the study, eight men and eight women, age 19 to 30, did three interval workouts. The participants were all experienced runners who regularly did at least one interval session a week. Over the course of a few weeks, the runners did a workout of six 4-minute intervals, with the only difference among the workouts being the rest period: For one workout, they had a 1-minute recovery between intervals; for another, they had a 2-minute recovery between intervals; and for the other, they had a 4-minute recovery between intervals.

The runners did the workouts on a treadmill set at a 5% grade. The runners were instructed to set their own pace, but to work at the highest intensity they thought they could maintain, knowing that they were doing six 4-minute bouts of hard running with either 1, 2, or 4 minutes of recovery between.

After the workouts, the runners rated how hard the sessions were. Both men and women gave the workouts a rating of just under 14 on the Borg scale of perceived exertion, which coincides with an effort level between "somewhat hard" and "hard/heavy."

But when measured physiologically, the workouts were different experiences for the men and women. Consistent through the three workouts, the women worked at a higher percentage of their maximum heart rate (around 96-97% of max) than the men (around 92% of max). Similarly, the women worked at a higher percentage of their VO2 max (88-90%) than the men (85-86%).

This was the case even though the men and women were equally recovered between intervals, as measured by their blood lactate levels.

"I think what our data show is that there appears to be meaningful differences in how men and women self-regulate their workouts," Matt Laurent, Ph.D., a professor at Bowling Green State University who was the lead researcher, told Runner's World Newswire.

"It seems plausible .... that in order for women to maintain the requisite 'high-intensity' prescription, a greater proportion of their aerobic capacity is necessary (when compared to men)," Laurent wrote in his study. "That is, in order to maintain aerobic energy production via oxidative pathways, a greater strain is placed on the cardiovascular system. This .... may suggest that in order to maintain what women perceive as high-intensity there is greater reliance on aerobic mechanisms vs. anaerobic pathways.

"Overall, though, the response of men and women tends to show that both are able to produce an appropriate stimulus during self-paced [interval workouts]," Laurent wrote.

Independent of gender differences, Laurent said, the study has practical use for runners who regularly do interval workouts.

Runners doing interval workouts "should listen to and trust their body and pay attention to how they are feeling," Laurent said. "In our study we show that individuals, if asked to run at a high intensity, will select an appropriate pace or intensity to produce an optimal cardiovascular and metabolic workout. Without having any feedback about their data, all the participants had to use to set their pace was how they felt during and how recovered they felt.

"Trust that if you push yourself to run what you consider hard, you are probably at the correct intensity, and if you maintain recommended work-to-rest ratios you most likely will recover appropriately to get the most out of your workout, independent of gender," Laurent said.

These findings are especially useful to runners who, out of preference or convenience, tend to do their hard workouts someplace other than the track. If you feel like you're working hard enough when doing intervals on unmeasured stretches of road or grass, you probably are, Laurent's findings suggest. Doing some of your hard sessions away from the track also better prepares you for the conditions you'll face, such as hills and turns, in road races.

Scott DouglasScott is a veteran running, fitness, and health journalist who has held senior editorial positions at Runner’s World and Running Times.

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